Forget Me Knot (A Quilting Mystery)

by Mary Marks

  Dinah’s was decorated in typical 1950s coffee shop style with red vinyl booths and brown laminate tables. In the mornings the place smelled like coffee and maple syrup. In the afternoon it smelled like hamburgers and fried chicken.

  I spotted a blond man in green scrubs standing near the cashier. He looked to be around thirty, the same age as my daughter. I walked up to him. “Are you Jerry Bell?”

  He turned toward me. “Yeah. You’re Claire’s friend?”

  I was stunned at how much he resembled Claire. He looked like he could be her younger, blonder brother. I didn’t remember Siobhan mentioning she had any other children, though. Also, Jerry’s last name was Bell, not Terry. Who would name a baby Jerry Terry anyway? So, if this man wasn’t Claire’s brother, who could he be? I began to entertain another possibility.

  Jerry Bell looked sleep deprived and his eyes were puffy and red, as if he either recently had cried or smoked weed. His lips slightly trembled. It wasn’t weed.

  “Yes. I’m Martha Rose. Thanks for meeting me.” I extended my hand.

  His grip was firm but brief. “Uh, I want to find out what happened to Claire.” He teared up and seemed so pitiful that my Jewish mother hormones started to surge.

  I put my hand on his arm and suggested the one sure remedy for everything. “Let’s get something to eat. I find it’s always easier to talk over food.”

  We sat in a booth toward the back and Jerry ordered a coffee and hamburger. I was still full of yogurt and crushed Heath bars, so I just ordered coffee. I hoped the caffeine would help my headache.

  “Ms. Rose . . .”

  “Call me Martha.”

  “Yeah. Okay. How did Claire die? When?”

  “We discovered Claire’s body a week ago today. She died of an overdose.”

  Jerry stared at me, horrified. Just then the waitress arrived with a thermos full of coffee and two cups. He waited for her to leave.

  “An overdose of what? I could swear Claire would never abuse drugs.”

  I poured the coffee for both of us. “The police don’t think she took the drugs voluntarily.”

  His jaw dropped. “Holy . . . ! What are you saying? Are you saying someone poisoned her?”

  “Would you know of anyone who might want her dead?”

  All the color drained from Jerry’s face. He put his elbows on the table and grasped his head. “No.” Then he looked at me suspiciously. “I don’t get the connection. What is your involvement in this?”

  “Claire invited us to quilt with her last Tuesday morning. When my friends and I got there, we found her body and called the police. They later determined she was murdered.”

  With shaking fingers, Jerry added two packets of sugar and stirred his coffee slowly. “How do they know it wasn’t accidental?”

  “There was blood on her hands.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Jerry’s obvious distress could be for a number of reasons. If he was a blackmailer or a boy toy, he would have to say good-bye to those monthly checks. However, if he was Claire’s true lover, he’d understandably be upset by her death. I didn’t know what to believe about him yet. Of course, there was that third possibility I was beginning to think was even more likely.

  The waitress returned with Jerry’s burger. He vigorously shook salt all over his French fries and then squeezed a blob of ketchup on the side of his plate. “I haven’t talked to Claire in about two weeks. Normally we talk every few days, but I’ve been working all night and studying for the boards on my time off.” He picked up a fry and stirred it absentmindedly in a slurry of ketchup.

  “Boards?”

  “Pediatrics. I’m a resident.” He shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” He put down the fry and swiped at his tears with the palm of his hand.

  “I’m so sorry, Jerry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  We sat in silence for a while. He worked on his burger.

  I used my fingertip to push around the white salt crystals that spilled on the brown wood-grained plastic of the tabletop.

  “I have to ask you one thing. Were you and Claire lovers?”

  “What the . . . ? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “I’m sorry if I upset you, but I have to ask. It seems Claire had a boyfriend, and we’re trying to find out who he is.”

  “Who is ‘we’? What are you doing, anyway?”

  He started to slide out of his seat, but I put up my hand to stop him. “Wait, Jerry, just give me a minute to explain.”

  He settled back down while I told him about my quest to break the code in Claire’s quilts. “I thought maybe her boyfriend might know, that’s all.”

  “I’m not her boyfriend. What made you think I was?”

  “Well, this is a little awkward. I saw your name in her um, address book.” I wasn’t going to tell him I’d been snooping in Claire’s files, let alone her panty drawer. “Since none of us knew who you were, we thought you might be the one. So I decided to call and find out.”

  Jerry’s laugh was mirthless. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  I waited a beat. “There’s one more thing. Why did Claire give you so much money?”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “How do you know about the money?”

  I decided to take the direct approach. “Were you blackmailing her?”

  He looked like he wanted to hit me. Then he closed his eyes, threw back his head, and laughed too loud. People around us stopped eating and stared.

  I lowered my voice. “Well, were you?”

  He stopped laughing and glared at me. “Not that it’s any of your business. Claire gave me money to help me through med school. I wanted to make it on my own, but sometimes things got too hard. I promised to pay her back when I finished my residency and started to earn some real money. She always said I didn’t have to, but I would have.” He picked up his hamburger and took another large bite.

  Although I thought I knew the real answer already, I still wanted to hear him to say it. “Well, if you’re not her lover and not a blackmailer, what were you to Claire?”

  Jerry swallowed. “I found her through adoption registry dot com. They help people locate their birth mother.”

  Bingo. “Can you tell me more?”

  “I was adopted.” He shoved a couple of French fries in his mouth. “My dad died when I was twelve, and my mom died while I was still an undergrad at Loyola. My girlfriend at the time urged me to look for my birth mother. That’s how I found Claire.”

  “Siobhan Terry told me Claire never had children.”

  “I know. That was the official story. Claire had me when she was fourteen. Since they’re Catholic, abortion was out of the question. They sent her away until I was born and made her give me up for adoption. They couldn’t have me around. I was a social embarrassment.”

  I waited until he finished another bite. “How did Claire react to seeing you?”

  “She was happy when I first contacted her, but she said her father would be furious if he knew. I think she was really intimidated by him.”

  I remembered my conversation with Will Terry and how pushy he was. I suspected he could be quite a formidable adversary when he wanted to be.

  “I told her times have changed and people change. Maybe they were ready to accept me, but she was adamant about not telling them or anyone else. I figured she knew them better than I did, so I just went along.”

  “I appreciate your being so open with me.”

  “To be honest, I don’t know why I’m telling you so much. I mean, you’re a stranger and all, but this is such a shock and, well, you seem to care.”

  “Thank you, Jerry. I do care. I have another question. Did Claire ever say who your birth father was?”

  “Well, I asked, of course, but she only said he was some boy in her class. She told me she didn’t even remember his name.”

  “Did you believe her? Seems to me the father of your child would be someone you’d never forget.”

&nb
sp; Jerry sighed. “Claire was a very private person. I had the feeling she had many secrets. I never pressed the issue.”

  I concealed my hands in my lap, crossed my fingers, and leaned forward. “Did she ever mention a lover to you?”

  Jerry shoved the last of the burger in his mouth. “I think there was something going on, but she never talked to me about that part of her life. Still, she did seem unusually happy lately.”

  “One last thing, Jerry. Did she ever tell you anything about her quilts?”

  “She offered me the one hanging in her living room.”

  “Secret Garden?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s the one. I don’t really have a place in my apartment to hang something so fancy. I told her I’d take the quilt when I got a real job and a real house of my own.”

  “Did she say why she wanted you to have that particular one?”

  “Yeah. Let me think.” He closed his eyes. He opened them after a minute. “Claire said Secret Garden was ‘our story,’ whatever that meant.” He dragged some more fries through the ketchup and dropped them in his mouth.

  Things were beginning to make some sense. Claire’s teen pregnancy was a secret the family wanted buried. Yet the beautiful images of living things sewn into the Secret Garden wall hanging suggested a joyful and peaceful place of repose—possibly about secretly reuniting with her son after all those years.

  I thought about the father I never knew, the one who died in a train wreck before I was born. What if I found out he was alive? Would I try to find him? Searching would take a lot of courage. What if he didn’t want to know me?

  Those same doubts must have burdened Jerry before finding Claire. Yet theirs was a happy reunion. She wanted to know him and obviously wanted him in her life. How sad for Jerry that with her death he’d lost two sets of parents.

  Jerry wiped the grease off his hands and mouth with a white paper napkin. He looked at me sadly, his voice cracking. “I don’t guess anyone knew to contact me since I was such a big secret. Has there already been a funeral? Do you know where she’s buried?”

  “There hasn’t been a funeral yet. They had to wait to complete the autopsy. I think the wake is this Thursday evening and the funeral is on Friday. I can find out the specifics from Claire’s mother and call you, if you’d like.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Only please don’t tell them about me just yet. I want to meet my grandparents, but I honestly don’t know if this is the right time to approach them. What do you think?”

  I thought Siobhan might welcome contact with her grandson after all these years, but after what Jerry had just told me, I wasn’t so sure about Mr. Terry. “It’s not my place to say anything, but there will come a time when they’ll want to know about you. You might turn out to be a big comfort to each other.”

  I didn’t know for sure if Jerry Bell was telling me the truth. My friend Lucy raised five sons, and she would’ve been able to figure out right away if he was lying. The only thing I had to go on was my gut reaction, and I felt sorry for this kid.

  I thought about Quincy. If someone were to call her out of the blue and tell her about my death, she probably would’ve reacted the same way Jerry Bell did. Shock, horror, and grief. I pulled a piece of blank paper from my notepad and wrote down two names and phone numbers. “Here. This is the detective handling the case. This is my number. Please call if you can think of anything else, or you just want to talk.”

  On the drive back to the Valley, I realized Jerry might very well benefit financially from Claire’s death as next of kin. If he knew the Secret Garden hung behind Claire’s sofa, he must’ve been familiar with her house. He’d probably been there many times and maybe even knew about the quilts in her sewing room and the files in her office. Maybe he even had a key to her house. Also, he was a doctor. Doctors had access to all kinds of drugs. Oh God. Had I just been played? Was Jerry Bell the thief and murderer?

  CHAPTER 16

  As bad as the drive to Dinah’s was, the drive on the 405 north back to the Valley was worse at four-thirty. The half hour trip took three times longer because our elected officials would rather squander millions of dollars studying the traffic problem than actually doing something about it.

  During the slow crawl toward the Sepulveda pass, I called Siobhan on my cell phone. I gave her the abbreviated version of my visit with Godwin, the Blind Children’s Association, the missing baby quilt, and my encounter with the bag lady. Although I was tempted, I didn’t tell her about Jerry Bell.

  “Claire made a baby quilt? I’ve got to have that quilt, Martha. I must have that quilt.” Siobhan sounded on the verge of hysteria.

  “What is it?”

  “I just now got a call from Detective Beavers with the autopsy results. Claire was four months pregnant.” She started to cry. “I need to have the baby quilt.”

  I was stunned. Jerry said Claire had been unusually happy. Was her pregnancy the reason? “Of course. As soon as I finish cleaning the quilt, I’ll bring it right over to you, but we have to tell Detective Beavers you have it. Right now everyone thinks it’s still missing.”

  Could Claire’s pregnancy have been the motive for her murder? Did someone want to make her child go away? Did the baby’s father, her lover, get rid of them both? Did Jerry Bell want to eliminate any competition for a possible inheritance?

  Siobhan’s wave of grief passed. “How did you find out about the baby quilt in the first place?”

  “We were able to hack into Claire’s computer this morning. We found a copy of the list the thief took along with photos of all her quilts.”

  Siobhan sighed. “Yes, of course. I received the fax you sent of the list. That reminds me. The detective thought the thief also stole Claire’s computer.”

  My heart raced as I realized I’d forgotten to warn her not to tell Beavers I had the computer. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him not to worry, that you’d taken it home with you.”

  Oh no! “What did he say?”

  “Not much. He seemed a little vexed.”

  This was very bad news. The quilts were going back tomorrow, and I wasn’t any nearer to cracking the code. I planned to search Claire’s other documents tonight for more clues, but I knew Beavers would be coming after the computer soon.

  Then I broached a painful subject. “Siobhan, do you want me to notify the guild members of the wake and the funeral so they can come and pay their respects? I can e-mail a notice to the membership tonight.”

  Her voice cracked. “That’s very thoughtful of you.” She gave me the details and then dissolved into tears again.

  “I’ll get the message out right away.”

  I called Jerry Bell’s number and left the information on his answering machine. My next call was to Lucy. I gave her the same info about Claire’s wake and funeral. “Could you send an e-mail to the members this evening?”

  “Sure thing. What happened with your visit to Godwin?”

  I told her about the missing baby quilt, my meeting with Jerry Bell, and my conversation with Siobhan.

  “Get out! Claire was pregnant and also had a secret son?”

  Just then a geezer in a Dodgers baseball cap driving a brand new Beamer convertible roadster cut in front of me. I stepped on the brakes, leaned on the horn, and yelled, “Moron!”

  “What was that?”

  “Some old jerk just cut me off. He’s giving me the one-finger salute. So mature.”

  Lucy laughed. “Tell me more about Jerry Bell.”

  “On one hand, he seems genuinely grief stricken. He cried in front of me, poor kid. On the other hand, he probably knew about her quilts and where to find her files. He’s got easy access to drugs, which could also make him a suspect. Frankly, I don’t know what to think. I wish you’d been there. You know boys much better than I do and you’re so good at sussing out the truth.”

  “Wish I’d been there, too. Are you going to tell Mrs. Terry?”

  “I think that’s up to Jerry, and he
’s not ready. By the way, Siobhan told Detective Beavers I’ve got Claire’s computer.”

  “Uh-oh. What are you going to do?”

  “I suspect he’ll be over soon demanding I hand over the computer. It’s a good thing you thought of making a copy of the photos.”

  “I copied all of the files, Martha.”

  “All the files—as in all the documents on her computer?”

  “Yup.”

  “How?”

  “I have a ten-gig flash drive. Easier to just dump all the documents at once than go cherry picking. I figured we’d sort through them later. The flash drive is still in my purse.”

  “Lucy, you really are a genius.”

  “I know.” She laughed. “Gotta go make dinner for Ray.”

  I pulled into my driveway sometime after six. I was relieved not to see a silver Camry parked nearby, but I was also sure Beavers would show up sometime soon. When I stepped inside, Bumper ran up to me and rubbed against my ankles. I scratched him behind the ears. “Hey, handsome. How’s my main squeeze?”

  I headed straight toward the laundry room and activated the washing machine, turning the handle to the rinse and spin cycle. I’d put the quilt in to soak about five hours ago, and in another ten minutes I’d find out if all the stains were gone.

  I walked back into the kitchen. The light blinked on my phone. I checked the messages. The first one was from Quincy. “Hi, Mom. Haven’t heard from you in days. Are you okay? Still bummed about your Civil War quilt? Give me a call and let me cheer you up with some interesting news. Love you.” I smiled, wondering what her news was going to be this time. New boyfriend? Promotion at work?

  There was a time when I seriously worried whether Quincy would ever get over my divorce from Aaron. She was furious with him for breaking up the family and causing us to give up our home in Brentwood and move to Encino—a social step down in Quincy’s opinion. She resented giving up her friends in private school for the dubious advantages of our local public schools.

  She also struggled to adapt to my becoming a working mother. In the past I’d always been at home to greet her at the end of her school day. After moving to Encino, Quincy fended for herself until I came home from my job at UCLA. All her familiar support systems vanished with the dissolution of our marriage. Who wouldn’t be pissed?